Law and Emotion: How Empathy Forms the Judges' Sense of Justice

Abstract

Although Judges and even Scholars tend to think that judicial decisions are exclusively rational, modern behavioral sciences have shown that emotion is as important in decision making as reason. Judges are influenced not only by statutes and precedents, but also by their own sense of justice, which provides a first ground from where reason could build more just decisions. Nevertheless, the sense of justice is not deprived of a logic of its own. Its logic works empathetically, providing an analogical translation of someone else's experience.

Keywords: Empathy, Judges' activity, Law and Emotion, Sense of justice